Anton Webern: Six Bagatelles for String Quartet, Op. 9 (1911-13)

Lasalle Quartet performs (rec. 1968).

"Non multa sed multum"--one of the earliest examples of the extreme aphoristic style Webern and the Second Viennese were working with around 1910-11. Artwork by Arnold Schoenberg, from http://www.schoenberg.at .

Category:

Music

Tags:

• bagatellen
• quartet
• schoenberg
• streichquartett
• string
• webern

[vampyrotheone]

set theory is the prostitution of European XX music theory and history... don't blame Webern

[musikfreund69]

@DaveSmey The development of serial music is not based on "fancy chords". This would make the whole issue a matter of taste. But when Schoenberg and his pupils left tonality behind, they were in the danger to become "musical outlaws". They felt the necessity of a "new order" to make composing in greater structures possible again. For every form of classical music until 1910 was based on tonality. Set theory was no idea "created at the desk" but the end of a struggle "in the middle of nowhere".

[DaveSmey]

@zebmcl - Ah, but sets are just fancy constellations of intervals - it's not as foreign to traditional musical thinking as you might assume.  You can look at his mentor Schoenberg's search for interesting new chords as one source - it's just a small leap from constructing weird chords to spreading them around in a more abstract way (horizontally and vertically), and BOOM you've got the origins of set theory. I'd recommend the writings of George Perle as a more down-to-earth approach to sets.

[zebmcl]

@WrestlingHeretic I agree its not serial but i would argue that this work can be applied to set theory. Not as free atonal as one might assume. However, I'm sure plenty of free atonality has been subject to set theory analysis and relationships found. The question is what was Webern thinking? Not about sets I presume.

[Fremglerk]

When you analyze the Bagatelles (which are as influenced by medieval techniques as those of Schoenberg), you learn they are probably the most concentrated music ever written. One of them is only *nine measures long* but manages to suggest an *entire sonata rondo form*.

[NathanEvansComposer]

I actually think it sounds so funny. It sounds like they're all screaming.

[gdionne1000]

Some of the most beautiful, almost saintly, music ever written.

[WrestlingHeretic]

@jmckaskle

Strictly speaking, the bagatelles for string quartet are free atonality, not serial, but I'm glad you "got it"!

[WrestlingHeretic]

@RobertoTifi

You're right, it does give the impression of freedom: but it's really extreme order, not extreme freedom, that Webern is getting across.

[RobertoTifi]

I was 10/11 when I first heard of Webern, Schoenberg, Berio, etc. Now I'm over 40, and I still like them very much. The first impression I received was of extreme freedom! "Expression" is the word I think of... Thanks for uploading. The "6 bagattelles" is exactly what I started with!